Rights to Self Defense

By Walter E. Williams

Let's think through the continuing attack on our constitutional protection to keep and bear arms. Try to find a flaw in the impeccable logic that follows. The fundamental starting point is we each own ourselves. If we own ourselves, we have the right to protect ourselves against those who would violate self-ownership through aggressive acts like murder, rape or theft. Historically, private acts of aggression pale in comparison to government-sponsored or sanctioned aggression, such as slavery, extermination, purges and imperialism.

This brutal lesson of history was not forgotten by our founders. Thomas Jefferson observed, "When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny." He added, "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

Increasingly, Americans are coming to fear their government. We fear the Internal Revenue Service, whom Congress has given the power to invade our privacy and require us to obey regulations that neither they nor anyone else understands. Not long ago, an official of the increasingly terrorist Environment Protection Agency (EPA) enviously said he longed for the day when a call from the EPA would instill as much fear in citizens as a call from the IRS. Then there's the increasing fear of the Gestapo-like tactics of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Food and Drug Administration, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Corps of Engineers. Congress sanctions these agencies to summarily violate major elements of our Bill of Rights guarantees, and a derelict Supreme Court sits in silence or complicity.

George Mason could have just as easily been talking about today's anti-gun movement when he said, "To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." And who's behind this movement? It's for the most part liberals in and out of Congress who want to make us servants of the state. They're the educationists who want to propagandize our children, the environmental extremists who'd like to trespass on our property with impunity and the wicked busybodies in and out of government.

They try to exploit our constitutional ignorance by claiming the Second Amendment refers to a "well-regulated militia" and government does the regulating. Nonsense! Noah Webster defined militia as "the effective part of the people at large," and George Mason defined militia as "the whole people, except for a few public officials." The framers knew that government at the very best was a "necessary evil" but that its central tendency was to become an intolerable evil. The Second Amendment was written to give us a fighting chance. With pious expressions. Liberals often ask, ^"Why would anybody want a military assault weapon'? You can't hunt with it." They want us to believe tire framers gave us the Second Amendment so that we could hunt deer and duck and do a little target practice.

Before we surrender our guns. We should remember that history's most barbaric people were also gun-ban advocates. Adolf Hitler sought a strict ban on gun possession by Jews. All over the post-Civil War South. Laws were written to restrict the sale of guns to blacks. Hitter and Southern racists weren't trying to fight crime. They sought to prevent Jews and blacks from defending themselves. Of course, the legislation didn't say that. In fact, I know of no evil legislation written in explicitly evil language. Including the Brady bill.

So far as crime is concerned. We should enforce existing laws and put criminals away. But I bet that if more law-abiding citizens carried guns. There'd be less street crime. Criminals are cowards and prey on the defenseless.

COPYRIGHT 1994 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.